Listening 101

It's not that this is a new revelation, but once again, I am seeing how emotionally handicapped the vast majority of people are. Rare is the person who knows how to listen to another's pain. Instead, people adopt one of several strategies to make the person in need shut up.

1) Deflect attention away from the subject at hand and toward something that happened to the listener. You tell someone you have cancer, and she will tell you when her immune system wasn't 100 percent and she caught a cold.

2) Avoid eye contact, divert attention to something else in the environment, look bored, or gaze at the wall clock.

3) Tell the person in pain that others have it so much worse than she does. This strategy is especially effective at getting the person to shut up as its message is "You have no right to feel bad. Stuff your feelings."

I have gotten all of the above responses from the healthcare providers at Kaiser--people whose job it is to offer support! Even from a social worker! And it's not that I've gone on and on about how I'm feeling, only one or two sentences before I'm shut down.

I got the same response from the so-called kidney support group. The leader told me that many people in the group have gone through so much more than me, even before she even knew what I've been through.

Ironically, the posters in the patient rooms encourage asking for support from friends, family, support-group members, and healthcare professionals.

So, for anyone who is reading this, here is Lesson One in Listening 101:

If someone comes to you with an emotional problem, if she is sad or lonely or depressed, don't tell her that others have it worse than she does. She may agree with you on an intellectual level, but that is not where she is at that moment. Instead, simply listen, provide good eye contact, and if appropriate, hold her hand, stroke her back, or give her a hug. Do not respond on an intellectual, problem-solving level. Simply let her air her feelings. You are there to listen intently. Your presence is what is needed, not your advice. Later perhaps, after she has calmed down, after she has voiced things she has perhaps not been able to voice previously, then she may ask for your help in sorting things out or making a plan of action. But at this moment, hold back from doing that. It is not wanted at this time and will only be perceived as an attempt to make her shut up.

My Cabin in Winter

Here is my cabin in its winter splendor, photo courtesy of my dear friend in Nova Scotia, Helene. She watches over my northern estate in my absence.

This photo and the one below of the shed on the property make me a little sad. Or maybe it's just that I'm a little sad already. I wonder if I will ever see my cabin again.



The days of stashing my possessions in a storage unit and taking off on a three-month, back-roads camping trip across the continent are gone. Even if I could be gone that long--I am obligated to be seen at my PD clinic once every 30 days at minimum--how would I ever take along all the supplies? I'd need a semi following me with dialysis bags, IV pole, tubing, cleaning supplies, surgical masks, medical tape, gynecological wipes (that are used following hand-washing to kill more germs), paper towels, clamps, anti-bacterial caps and ointment, and hydrogen peroxide. At least 50 pounds per day! For a three-month trip, that would mean hauling 4,500 pounds of supplies.

And yet this is how out of touch people are when I say I feel that everything I enjoy is being taken away from me. The dietician at the PD clinic said there was no reason why I couldn't be gone for a month. She just doesn't get it. Sure, if I were going to be in one location, I could have the supplies delivered there, but not if I'm traveling from point to point and living in my truck--which is what my plan had been up until a few months ago. I had planned on traveling in my vehicle, writing and editing from the road, like I did in the summers of 2005 and 2006. How profoundly things have changed!